RN15 | Esa 11th Conference

RN15 – Global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology

Coordinator:
Vincenzo Cicchelli Vincenzo.cicchelli@msh-paris.fr University Paris Descartes, Paris, France

One of the main challenges that sociology and social sciences face today is to understand how individuals, collective actors and structures cope with the dilemmas, tensions and ambivalences of modern societies embedded in supranational dynamics. RN 15 on global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology calls for papers dealing theoretically, methodologically and empirically with issues related to the supranational dimension, the local-global complex, or transnational shared practices, cultures and patterns of affiliation. We particularly welcome papers that deal with the broad topic of local-global relations, and four interconnected themes: supranational approaches to Europe in the crisis, the global spread of popular culture, the domestication of policy models, and cosmopolitanism. Accepted contributors will be encouraged to join the RN and contribute as network members.

Sessions

del_01RN15 The Local and the Global: the Multi-Level Constitution of Societies in the 21st Century

The problem of the European sovereign debt is a prime example of the way in which all regions of the contemporary world are interrelated. With its origins partly in the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble and the 2008 financial crisis, it is obvious that in this European crisis actors’ choices are conditioned on those of others irrespective of local and national boundaries. In that sense we can talk about the world as a single place or world society, in which not only threats and crises but also ideas and knowledge travel relatively freely and quickly across all borders. Yet there is no world government, which means that nation-states try to manage the changing situations as best they can, defending their own interests, and people typically identify with the nation or a particular faction. Even if global challenges would require joint actions by larger imagined communities, creating compassion and extending people’s solidarity beyond the national borders has proved quite difficult. We call for papers dealing with the ways in which the local and the global are intertwined and embedded in each other in the contemporary world.

del_02RN15 A Supranational Approach to Europe’s Socio-Economic Crisis: Are New Solidarities Possible?

Studying Europe from a supranational perspective is still relatively innovative, and was not as obvious even in the recent past as it is today. As paradoxical as this might seem, the crisis that has hit Europe since 2009 confirms the consciousness of the necessity to adopt supranational approaches to sociology. These crises made clear that, now more than ever, Europe cannot be studied apart from the rest of the world, nor can its members be considered as more or less bounded, sovereign entities. The response to the crises as well as the recent position regarding international political issues has also stressed the European Union’s role in a globalized world. In this new polycentric world, twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and ten years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, what is the effectiveness of the EU as a soft power? Can we affirm that EU has developed a coherent and cohesive foreign policy? How do European societies and people relate to the global position of Europe and to the world outside Europe? Furthermore, how does the European crisis contribute to expanding the public sphere beyond the cultural containers of nations? We call for papers, which would promote research and increase knowledge about Europe and the socio-economic crisis from a supranational perspective.

del_03RN15 The Global Spread of Popular Culture

It has been argued that the contemporary world society consisting of national states is increasingly governed through soft, cognitive or epistemic powers. These globalizing cultural and cognitive powers tend to make actors perceive and experience the world similarly. From this viewpoint, art and popular culture are very important, since people’s views and sentiments are often moved more effectively by fiction, music and other forms of art, than by facts. The global diffusion of popular culture is also interesting as an example of the formation and reproduction of world culture, or what has been called aesthetic cosmopolitanism. At the same time, this global spread of culture engages interestingly with localization, although this remains an open area for research. Hence, within a broad scope of issues in this topic we would embrace papers that deal with the global spread and localization of popular cultural products, such as films, television series, reality TV formats, or contents of the social media.

del_04RN15 Democracies, Governance and Politics: Domestication of Policy Models

In our current times, democratic politics and policy processes are facing new challenges and dilemmas. Transnational and global hard and soft factors are changing the traditional national politics and policies. The fact that worldwide models diffuse throughout the world would seem to suggest that there is a homogenization going on. A closer look at the way in which global ideas are translated to local contexts, however, shows that this is not necessarily the case. Emulation often takes place in the name of “national interest”. Thus, policy-making draws on global models but does so with a rhetoric of “banal nationalism”, enhancing identification with the nation as an imagined community. In that sense the local and the global are intertwined in a process of domestication. This interrelatedness is created both by international organizations and institutional or policy entrepreneurs carrying models across borders, and by the very way in which policies are made in contemporary states. How are national policy communities and networks coping with supranational factors and actors in order to bring about effective and legitimate public solutions for the national problems? While being open to broad issues within this topic, we welcome particularly papers that address the ways in which national policy-making is informed by models adopted elsewhere, thus entangling the local and the global.

del_05RN15 Towards a Renewed Cosmopolitan Sociology

Cosmopolitanism is still a relatively new entrant to sociology, despite its historical roots in the European Enlightenment’s view of individual ties with humanity at large. A new wave of cosmopolitan sociology is redressing earlier emphasis on political theory, beginning with the recognition of different types of modernities and societal transformations. In that sense, cosmopolitanism refers to the multiplicity of ways, values and norms in which the social world is constructed, and to the imagination of the self as linked to others and to the world. At the same time, the cosmopolitan approach understands social relations through a universalistic conception of humanity. Yet, the extent to which Europe and Europeans associate in and with global public remains an open question. These questions have become more pertinent in light of the economic crisis as well as recent political events that evoke cosmopolitan imaginations but can also hinder them. What is the link between transnational economics, political and institutional structures, and peoples’ beliefs in and consciousness of becoming cosmopolitan? Is there any reluctance to change? What about the sense of local belonging in a supposedly cosmopolitan age? What are the dark sides of globalization? Are there any risks of losing individual freedom and cultural identities? We welcome empirical and theoretical papers that explore cosmopolitan sociology: a) especially on Europe and Europeans within European and global publics; b) in line with the perspectives of the emerging cosmopolitan consciousness and focused on awareness of cultural pluralism, the place that ‘otherness’ is granted within one’s own identity and the broadening sense of one’s national belonging at various levels. A sense of familiarity is certainly the bedrock of cultural adherence. But at the same time, in a world made up of connected cultures under the pressure of globalization, familiarity cannot be the only yardstick by which one can measure reality and identity.

del_06RN15 Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology (open)

01RN15 The Local and the Global: the Multi-Level Constitution of Societies in the 21st Century (I)

Chair Daniel Chernilo, <d.chernilo@lboro.ac.uk> Loughborough University

02RN15 The Local and the Global: The Multi-Level Constitution of Societies in the 21st Century (II)

Chair Peter Holley peter.holley@helsinki.fi University of Helsinki

03RN15 A Supranational Approach to Europe’s Socio-Economic Crisis: Are New Solidarities Possible?

Chair Vincenzo Cicchelli <vincenzo.cicchelli@msh-paris.fr> Gemass, Paris Sorbonne/CNRS

04RN15 Democracies, Governance and Politics: Domestication of Policy Models (I)

Chair Vincenzo Cicchelli <vincenzo.cicchelli@msh-paris.fr> Gemass, Paris Sorbonne/CNRS

05RN15 Democracies, Governance and Politics: Domestication of Policy Models (II)

Chair Ali Qadir <ali.qadir@uta.fi> University of Tampere

06RN15 Towards a Renewed Cosmopolitan Sociology (I)

Chair Sylvie Octobre <sylvie.octobre@culture.gouv.fr> Ministère de la culture et de la communication (France)

07RN15 Towards a Renewed Cosmopolitan Sociology (II)

Robert Fine <Robert.Fine@warwick.ac.uk> University of Warwick

08RN15 Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology (I)Diffusion

Chair Pertti Alasuutari <pertti.alasuutari@uta.fi> University of Tampere

09RN15 Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology (II)Identities

Chair Marco Caselli <marco.caselli@unicatt.it> Università Cattolica di Milano

10RN15 Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology (III)Space, professions & organizations

Chair Pertti Alasuutari <pertti.alasuutari@uta.fi> University of Tampere

posterRN15 Posters RN 15

Joint Sessions

12_15JS28 – Glocalisation, Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Sport (1)

Joint session with RN28 – Society and Sports

Chair: Renan Petersen-Wagner <renan.petersen-wagner@durham.ac.uk>, University of Durham Angel Manuel Ahedo Santisteban <manuel.ahedo@ehu.es>, University of the Basque Country

‘As more processes show less regard for state boundaries – people shop internationally, love internationally, marry internationally, research internationally, grow up and are educated internationally (that is multi-lingually), live and think transnationally, that is combine multiple loyalties and identities in their lives – the paradigm of societies organized within the framework of the nation-state inevitably loses contact with reality.’ (Beck, 2000, p. 80). With this open statement from Ulrich Beck, it is possible to envision how the idea of nation-state society has been challenged lately in sociology not only through his cosmopolitan theory, but also by a myriad of approaches as network society (Manuel Castells), mobile society (John Urry), glocalisation theory (Roland Robertson), and McDonaldisation theory (George Ritzer), between many others. In this regard, this call for papers is interested in both empirical and theoretical contributions that look into the role and characteristics of contemporaneous nation-state and nationalism within professional sport. What means to represent and support a country? Whose country to represent and support in case of multiple nationalities? What means to have multiple loyalties? How solidarity and social movements occur across political national borders? How mobility of coaches and athletes challenge the notion of a national team play/spirit? These are examples of questions that could be addressed, but are not an exclusive list. Special attention will be given to papers dealing with sport megaevents, which still confronts nation-states as Olympic Games, World Cups, and more regional events as European and Commonwealth Games.

13_15JS28 – Glocalisation, Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Sport (2)

Joint session with RN28 – Society and Sports

Chair: Angel Manuel Ahedo Santisteban <manuel.ahedo@ehu.es>, University of the Basque Country Renan Petersen-Wagner <renan.petersen-wagner@durham.ac.uk>, University of Durham

15JS28 – Glocalisation, Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism and Sport

Joint session with RN28 – Society and Sports

Chairs: Renan Petersen-Wagner & Angel Manuel Ahedo Santisteban

RN15 – Global, transnational and cosmopolitan sociology

Sessions

Joint Sessions

Thank you very much to all participants for making esa torino an outstanding conference.